by Bess McBride
Time passed...too much time...and Roger turned and stared at the entrance to the courtyard, willing Clara to come. He had almost given up hope when her slight form appeared under the arch. He turned toward her and upon arriving at her side, offered her the most abject bow.
“Forgive me, Miss Bell. I cannot apologize enough. I offended and humiliated you. Please forgive me. I have no adequate words to describe my anguish at wounding you thus.”
Roger kept his head bent, terrified lest she turn and stalk off. He had not even studied her face to ascertain the tone of her emotions. When she said nothing, he lifted his head. Her face was pale, and she looked at the gravel beneath her feet.
“Clara?” he prompted. “Will you not speak to me?”
“I don’t know what to say...”
Roger wanted to take her hands in his, but she kept them laced behind her back, as he did his.
“Can you find it in your heart to forgive me for abusing you thus?”
“Abusing me?” she whispered. “That’s a bit much. Not abuse.”
“It was, and I am most heartily sorry.”
“We weren’t going to hurt each other anymore,” she said, her voice small.
“No, we had agreed to such, and I broke our faith.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the way you talk. It’s so...intense.”
“I do not mean to frighten you,” Roger said.
“I’m not frightened, just out of my element.”
“I do not understand your meaning. Do you refer to your...journey...here to the nineteenth century?”
“Probably...in a way. I’m just a simple woman, a business-owning maid. I’m not the kind of woman that someone ‘breaks faith’ with. I would have taken a simple ‘I’m sorry.’”
“I’m sorry,” Roger said, unused to using contractions.
“Thank you. I’m sorry too,” she said. “I think you misunderstood what you saw in the drawing room. The other day when I first met Lord Carswell, I did tear up at the thought of being forced into marriage. But I didn’t tell him about Miss Hickstrom or that I had been brought back through time. Then things changed, and I offered to marry you so you wouldn’t have to marry Penelope. I wasn’t crying this morning...not then.” She smiled weakly. “I did have a good cry later though.”
Roger had all he could do not to pull Clara into his arms, but he had never done such a thing. He could not bear to see her sadness, and he offered her his hands. To his utter delight, Clara unlaced her hands and put them in his. Roger tightened his grip, vowing never to let her go.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I am sorry.”
“I know you are.”
“How may I make amends?”
“Well, we can’t renew our plan because Miss Hickstrom is wise to it.”
“You mean...she knows it was a ploy? Yes, she said as much to me today.”
“Oh, did you see her?”
“She came to the gatehouse...in her appearing and disappearing way.”
“What did she say?”
Miss Hickstrom’s words came to him. Fight for her. St. John’s words came to him. Fight for her. Tell her how you feel.
A declaration of love was on the tip of his tongue, and he had only to let the words fall. Clara would either accept them or reject them. He could not bear that she turn from him. He could not bear it.
“She proffered advice,” he said.
“Oh!”
Clara seemed to wait, but Roger could not force himself to speak from his heart.
“What now?” he asked. He wanted to ask about Lord Carswell but did not care to raise the gentleman’s name. “Do you return home?”
Clara looked up at him, her hazel eyes glistening. “What about you? Do you have to marry Penelope?”
Roger dipped his head. “Yes, I believe Miss Hickstrom will hold me to that obligation.”
“How can I help?”
“There is nothing you can do, Clara, but I thank you for offering.”
“So you’d rather marry Penelope than me?”
Chapter Nineteen
Clara heard the words as if someone else had spoken them. Roger’s expression of shock seemed clear though. She had actually spoken the words aloud.
“No!” he said forcefully. “No, of course not!”
Clara dropped her eyes from his searching gaze, looking down at the gravel under her feet.
“I’m sorry! I have no idea why I said that.”
“Do you not?”
She shook her head, her eyes traveling to his booted feet.
“Clara...” he began.
“You really hate the idea of marriage, don’t you? I don’t think I realized how much you hated it.” Her throat ached, and she tried to swallow.
Roger was silent so long that she was finally forced to look up at him. His blue eyes, soft with an expression she didn’t understand, scanned her face.
“Oh, wait now!” Clara held up a hand. “Don’t you go feeling sorry for me, Roger Phelps Rowe...or whatever your name is these days. I don’t want to get married either. I wasn’t offering to marry you because I’ve got some kind of weird crush on you. I don’t even know you! So you can just stop that sympathetic look. I was trying to help you, not me. I have my business, my friend, my life...even as pathetic as it is. I don’t want any stinking husband, and I definitely wouldn’t consider living in the dark ages! So—” Clara ran out of air...and steam. No, not steam. She still fumed. How had her offer to help him turned on her that he should give her a look of such tender sympathy?
“I beg your pardon?” he finally said.
“You say that a lot. Did you know that? Is that some kind of filler in a conversation? Look, we’re never going to get along. It was silly to think we could. We’re very different people, and we couldn’t even get along for two short weeks and one even shorter marriage...which never happened—for which I am grateful! So you go your way”—Clara pointed to a spot in the distance—“and I’ll go my way, and we can put this ridiculous thing behind us. You do what you need to do...marry Penelope...I don’t care. I’m sure you’re a nice guy, Roger. They say you’re a nice guy. I wouldn’t know, of course, because I don’t know you at all. Have a nice day!”
With that, Clara whirled around and returned to the house, pulling the large oak door shut and hoping it would slam smartly. But it only closed with a dull thud. She marched back through the house with the intention of running up to her room for a good cry, but she decided instead to head out the front door and make good her escape from the castle and grounds.
Will sprang to open the door, and she hurried down the stairs and up the drive, hoping that Roger had not returned to the gatehouse. The gate was open, and she scurried through it and turned onto the road. Thankfully, the road was free of inconvenient carriages and men on horses, and Clara walked briskly toward what she thought was the village. But she continued to fume. She stopped and called on the only person who could make things better.
“Miss Hickstrom! Can you come here? I know you’re busy—you’ve told me enough times—but I need you. I want to go home now!”
Clara scanned her surroundings—a rutted dirt road, lovely soft green grass, sweet trees lining the road.
“Hickstrom!” she called again, stamping her foot.
“Miss Bell! I simply do not have time for this!” Hickstrom said, walking up behind her. She wore the same green dress as she had earlier that morning. “Whatever is the matter now?”
“I would like to go home now, please. The situation here is just impossible. I can’t do this. I can’t be here. I can’t live here. I don’t want to see that man! I’m done. Please send me home now. I am a mistake!” Clara finished her rant.
“My dear Clara, I am exhausted with your antics, your behavior. You are not a mistake, but you are too much trouble. I do not like to ignore you when you call—which you do far too often—and so I am here though I have other lonely hearts to mend. Therefore, I will send you home n
ow. You will not have an opportunity to bid farewell to Mary, St. John, Rachel, Halwell, Lord Carswell or Lord Rowe. I will advise them that you have returned home at your request.”
“Good!” Clara said, ignoring the pounding of her heart and the ache in her chest. “Good. I’m ready.” Clara held out her arms as if she were to be lifted skyward.
“Do not be silly, Clara. You are not an angel. Goodbye, dear.”
Rather than be lifted skyward, Clara felt herself falling. When next she opened her eyes, she was lying on a beige carpeted floor. The shabby carpet seemed familiar.
Her apartment! She was in her apartment! How had Hickstrom known where to send her? Silly question. Hickstrom seemed to know everything.
Clara pushed herself upright and scanned her living room. Everything was in place, just as it should be. She heard the sound of a toilet flushing, and she stiffened. Someone was in her apartment!
“Hickstrom? Is that you?”
“Clara?” a voice screeched. Janie came running around the corner, and spotting Clara, fell to her knees beside her.
“Where have you been? What on earth are you wearing? Where did you go? I called the police, and they came to the house, but the house didn’t belong to a Hermione Hickstrom, and the absentee owners said I was trespassing, and the police escorted me out of there. So there’s no way they were looking for you! I came by your apartment for like the hundredth time to see if you had shown up. Where have you been? What are you wearing?”
Janie shook Clara’s shoulders, as if to shake answers from her.
“Hickstrom is a fairy godmother,” Clara mumbled, still disoriented to find herself in her apartment.
“A fairy godmother? Wait, like the book? And where on earth did that thing go? It vanished right along with you. There are no such things as fairy godmothers. Godmothers, but not fairies.” Janie ran her hands along Clara’s arms, as if looking for broken bones. “You know, this dress...looks a whole lot like an empire-waist dress. Where did you get it?”
“The year 1807.”
Janie reared her head and sat back on her knees, staring at Clara. “Right,” she said skeptically.
“I know. I know, Janie, but it’s true. Hickstrom is a fairy godmother, and she sent me back to the nineteenth century to marry a baron. Only that didn’t work out.”
Janie leaned forward and looked into Clara’s eyes. She wiggled her fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“I don’t have a concussion, Janie. I traveled through time.”
Janie sat back again and tilted her head, squinting. “Okay, that’s nuts.”
“But true. Time travel is real...or at least time travel by fairy godmother is real.”
Janie rubbed her eyes. “Look, I haven’t slept in days. Since you disappeared. I’m not sure I’m hearing you right.”
“You are. I know it will take you time to absorb it, but you’re hearing me right.”
“Time travel?”
Clara nodded. She pushed herself to a standing position and scanned her apartment. Everything was in order, familiar, modern, the same. Nothing had changed. Except for her. She had changed.
Janie fingered the material of the dress again.
“I know you’re not lying, Clara. I’ve never known you to lie, but you can’t expect me to believe that you’re not hallucinating or something. I think I should take you to the emergency room to get checked out.”
“I’m not crazy, and I’m not hallucinating. You’ll just have to believe me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go use a proper toilet. And then I’m going to take a hot shower...and brush my teeth.”
Janie rose to stand with her. “A proper toilet?”
“No running water in the nineteenth century,” Clara called over her shoulder. “As much as you read historical novels, I’m sure you know that. I’ll be a while. Why don’t you order us a pizza? I’m starving!”
Forty-five minutes later, Clara emerged from the bathroom, squeaky clean. She dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, enjoying the act that took no time at all. Janie had indeed ordered a pizza, which awaited them on a coffee table in front of Clara’s chenille blue couch.
She plopped down onto the couch next to Janie and opened the box. Pulling out a slice, she bit into the pizza and leaned back with a sigh of relief.
“You have no idea how hard it is to live in the nineteenth century,” she said in between chewing. “I’m not the only one, you know. There were two other twenty-first-century women there...both are married to English aristocrats.”
Clara turned to look at Janie, who had not taken any food but continued to stare at her with an expression of concern.
“You’re not eating.” She gave Janie a crooked smile. “I’m not crazy. Have some pizza.”
Janie reached for a piece but only toyed with it. Clara could see that Janie studied her out of the corner of her eye.
“You know, I kept thinking that you would have liked it there. You love that kind of stuff.”
“Time travel...as you say?” Janie asked.
“Historical stuff.”
Janie sighed heavily and put her slice of pizza back in the box. She crossed her arms.
“Okay, tell me everything you think you remember.”
For the next hour, Clara did her best to explain what had happened to her when she disappeared. While doing so, she ate four slices of pizza, pausing only when her throat tightened as she talked about Roger.
“And then I woke up here...in the apartment,” Clara finished. She wiped her hands on a napkin and settled back on the couch. “How has work been going? I’m so sorry I disappeared like that. I know we had jobs.”
“The crews handled them,” Janie said. “Don’t worry about that. So this Roger guy. What about him?”
“Hickstrom plays matchmaker, and she just picked the wrong combination—that’s all. Neither one of us wanted to get married...ever!”
“But didn’t you say that he has to marry that girl Penelope? And that she’s really awful?”
Clara cleared her throat and nodded. “I guess that’s what he would prefer.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said. He broke off the engagement with me, even if it was going to be just a temporary thing, and he probably knew that Hickstrom would make him marry Penelope. Soooo...” Clara shrugged.
“Soooo...” Janie echoed
“So that’s his problem now. Then. Not now. He’s not living now.”
“I think he’s probably dead by now, Clara.”
Tears sprang to Clara’s eyes and burned their way down her cheeks. “Oh, don’t say that!”
“I’m sorry, Clara. I didn’t realize. I mean...I thought I heard something in your voice, but...”
“No, it’s okay,” Clara said, wiping at her face and pulling her shoulders back. “He wasn’t ever going to love me.”
“Love?” Janie repeated. “You hardly knew each other!”
“Time moves fast in a fairy tale,” Clara said, hugging the pain in her chest.
“Are you in love with Roger? Did you fall in love?”
Clara drew in a deep breath. “I guess so.”
“In a couple of days? How?”
“Because he’s decent and honest and kind and a gentleman and courteous and handsome and has these blue eyes that can freeze me out or thaw my heart.”
Clara’s eyes filled again. “Or maybe Hickstrom stirred some potion in her magic pot and made me fall in love with him. I don’t know!”
“I don’t think fairy godmothers have pots. That would be witches,” Janie said, wrapping her arm around Clara’s shaking shoulders.
At the gesture, Clara began sobbing in earnest.
“Clara! I’m so sorry. What can we do to fix this?”
“Nothing,” Clara sobbed. “Nothing. He didn’t want to marry me anyway.”
“Are you saying that you would have stayed in the nineteenth century? Before anesthesia? And hot showers? And toilets?”
/>
Clara nodded. “Yes, I would. I wanted to pretend that I hated it there, but I really didn’t. England is so beautiful, the men are handsome, the grass is soft, and the clothes are beautiful.”
“All the important stuff.” Janie chuckled. “It sounds wonderful.”
“You would love it.” Clara sniffed. “I can’t understand why Hickstrom didn’t pick you.”
“Well, maybe your Roger wasn’t for me.”
“Not my Roger. Not anymore. He never was, actually.” Clara gulped back another round of sobs and lifted her head.
“I’m not so sure, Clara,” Janie said. “He doesn’t sound like a guy who wasn’t interested in you.”
Clara stiffened and looked at her friend. “What did I say that made you think he saw me as anything other than a pain in the neck or a way out of something even worse?”
“He agreed to marry you. He kissed your hand. He got angry when he thought you were crying about the idea of getting married. He bowed to you. He apologized for being wrong.”
“None of that means he loves me.”
“Maybe not, but when’s the last time a man apologized to you or kissed your hand or agreed to marry you?”
“That’s just how they are,” Clara murmured weakly. “They’re very polite.”
“Well, then why don’t you go back and marry a polite man who happens to be a baron? Or you could clean houses for the rest of your life. Your choice.”
Chapter Twenty
Roger paced about like a caged animal, awaiting Mary in the drawing room. He had been beside himself with grief since receiving a note from Mary stating Clara had returned to her time, that Miss Hickstrom was done with Clara and machinated her departure earlier than planned.
The door opened, and Roger whirled around.
Mary and St. John entered the room.
Roger held out his hands in supplication. “What am I to do? What am I to do?”
Mary moved toward him and took his hands, murmuring platitudes as if she spoke to a child. “It’s okay, Roger. It’s okay.”
Behind her, St. John poured two drams of whisky from a decanter.